Our goal is to keep our blood sugar stable without spikes of too high and dips of too low. When blood sugar goes up, insulin goes up. We keep our blood sugar stable with a diet high in healthy fats and proteins and low in carbohydrates. Mark lost 30 pounds in two months when we started eating this way. We were so thrilled when he had is cholesterol checked, a few months after our lifestyle change - for the first time in twenty years all of the numbers had improved! I wanted to answer the question, that do carbohydrates, blood sugar, and insulin have to do with your cholesterol?

I spent many months researching this question; it is understandably a complicated subject. The following five quotes answer in a nutshell what carbohydrates, blood sugar, and insulin have to do with your cholesterol:

From the book The Protein Power LifePlan by Michael R. Eades, M.D. & Mary Dan Eades, M.D. page 107 “What is cholesterol? Far from villain, this waxy alcohol (not a fat at all) occurs in every cell of every organ and tissue in the body. It functions there in many ways, among them, giving shape and structure to the cell membranes and providing the raw materials to produce the sex hormones, “youth” hormones, and the hormones that help us to withstand stress and reduce inflammation. Without enough cholesterol, the body can’t properly replace and renew its worn or damaged cells, since making a new cell membrane requires cholesterol. Without new cells, the body will age and die.”

Protein Power by Michael R. Eades, M.D. & Mary Dan Eades, M.D. page 34 and 35. “Insulin activates the enzymes that run the cholesterol-making apparatus, resulting in overproduction of cholesterol.Our own cells make cholesterol, and lots of it. In fact, 70 to 80 percent of the cholesterol burbling along in your blood vessels was made by your own body. Only 20 to 30 percent came from your diet. Every cell in the body has the capacity to make cholesterol, but most is made in the liver, the intestines, and the skin with the vast majority coming from the liver cells.”

The Protein Power LifePlan page 56. “Under the influence of insulin, the liver increases its production of cholesterol, resulting in more of the “bad” LDL cholesterol, less of the “good” HDL type, and higher levels of triglycerides in the blood-a blood profile that spells increased risk for heart disease.”

The Protein Power LifePlan page 109 “By simply changing the way you eat to a diet lower in starch and sugar and higher in good-quality fats, you can reduce elevated cholesterol, lower your triglycerides, alter the type of “bad” LDL you produce, increase your “good” HDL levels, and reduce your risk for heart disease-without resorting to expensive and potentially damaging medications.”

The Protein Power LifePlanpage 106 “Niacin. In those rare cases where our patients require LDL and cholesterol lowering beyond that which our nutritional program delivers, we usually use this simple, inexpensive, and relatively side effect free vitamin…For our patients we recommend beginning a dose of 500 mg No-Flush Niacin three times a day, but that dose can be pushed up to 1,500 three times daily without problems if needed. In our experience, that’s rarely the case.”

Our new way of eating dramatically improved Mark’s cholesterol number; they were better but not great. He has a genetic predisposition to produce excessive amounts of cholesterol. Mark exercises a lot more than I do, he hikes four miles a day, we eat the same foods and my cholesterol numbers are better than his. Therefore we decided to add “No-Flush Niacin”, Red Yeast Rice and fish oil to his regime. Now, his cholesterol numbers are great!!

Mark is a cookie monster! His sister Julie tells us that when they were growing up, Mark would walk through the kitchen, where Julie was making cookies, as he would leave the kitchen most of Julie’s cookies were piled in his hands. Mark is still a cookie monster today, but now he has a new favorite cookie! They do not cause his blood sugar to spike which would lead to excess insulin in his blood, therefore causing excessive cholesterol. These cookies were inspired by Maria’s Nutritious and Delicious Journal, to see her "Healthified” Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe click here.These cookies use Just Like Brown sugar which is made of chicory root. If you click on Maria's blog above she goes into detail about the healthy benefits of chicory root. It is so good for your digestion, helps gall bladder issues, is helpful for your kidneys and liver, the list goes on. And it does not raise your blood sugar. The problem with Just Like Brown Sugar is that it costs about $20. a pound. I decided to weigh 3/4 of a cup to determine the cost per batch of cookies. I was surprised that 3/4 of a cup of JLBS weighs 2.6 ounces and 3/4 of a cup of erythritol (Zsweet) weighs 5.3 ounces. This means that JLBS costs about the same as Zsweet or Swerve because it weighs half as much. With a pound of JLBS I can make 6 batches of cookies. That equals about $3.33 of JLBS per batch of 24 cookies, that is not bad for all of the health benefits of chicory in a super yummy cookie. I can not find Just Like Brown Sugar, Zsweet or Swerve locally. I order it on my Amazon Store.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and the coconut oil. Add the sweeteners, egg, and vanilla. Cream until well mixed. In a separate bowl, mix together the almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ones, mixing until smooth. Gently add the chocolate chips.

Place the cookie dough by the heaping tablespoon on a cookie sheet. Press down the dough just a little bit to flatten the top. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 17 minutes until the edges are light brown. Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet. Makes about 24 cookies.

This recipe was inspired by my sister Catherine. I love making a German Pancake because the cook gets to eat breakfast with everyone instead of flipping pancakes in the kitchen. I had not heard of a German Pancake until my sister made one while we were visiting. It is baked in the oven in a 9x13 pan and puffs up while cooking, especially on the edges. I modified her recipe to make it low-carb. I think that this recipe is one that your non low-carb, grain-free family and friends will like. Let me know if that is true. We top this with my easy, stevia-sweetened berry jam (click here) that I have just made so it is not gelled up yet. You can also gently warm the jam so that the gelatin liquefies.

Low-Carb German Pancake 6 eggs 1/8 tsp stevia (I use Bolivian stevia. This is equivalent to ¼ cup of sugar sweetness) 1/8 tsp salt (I use Real Salt) 2 tsp cinnamon 2 tsp vanilla ¼ cup coconut flour ¼ cup cream ¾ cup unsweetened almond milk (I use vanilla) ¼ cup coconut oil- you do not add this to the batter, you melt it in the pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When the oven is hot, put your empty 9x13 baking dish in it while you are making the batter. When the dish is hot, put your ¼ cup of coconut oil into the hot dish to melt. In a medium-sized bowl, beat the eggs with the stevia, salt, cinnamon, vanilla and coconut flour. Add the cream and almond milk, and mix until smooth. (if you are dairy-free substitute the ¼ cup of cream for ¼ cup more of almond milk.)

Pour your batter into the hot pan that has the coconut oil melted in it.

Bake on the center rack for 25 to 30 minutes until puffed up and golden brown.

I make the entire recipe for just the two of us. My husband, Mark, is a pancake monster and can eat half of the pancake on his own, and still remains thin! I like to save the flatter middle to cut into “bread” shapes to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch; it is so good!! Store any uneaten pancake in the refrigerator. It heats up nicely in the toaster.

This jam is a staple in our refrigerator and so easy to make. We use it on our pancakes or waffles for breakfast and in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Yummy! Berries are a good fruit to eat. They are lower in carbs than a lot of other fruits, high in fiber and full of antioxidants. I use the frozen “Nature’s Three Berries” from Costco. It is a raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry blend. Each cup of berries has 17 grams of carbs and 3 grams of fiber.

¼ tsp stevia (I use Bolivian stevia. This is equivalent to ½ cup of sugar sweetness)

Place 6 cups of frozen or fresh berries with ¼ cup of water in a medium-sized pan on medium-low heat. Stirring occasionally bring the berries to a low boil. Time the boiling berries for 3 minutes.

While the berries are boiling, place ¼ cup of water in a small bowl. Sprinkle 1 TBL of gelatin into the water. Allow to sit for at least 1 minute.

When the berries have finished boiling, remove the pan from the heat. Add ¼ tsp of stevia - my stevia is strong so you may need to add more. Taste and adjust to your desired sweetness level. Add the softened gelatin to the berries and stir well. Cool for about 10 minutes and pour into 2 pint jars. Keep refrigerated.

Note: This recipe will keep in the refrigerator for about two weeks. With no sugar as a preservative it will mold as any fresh fruit does. The two of us have never had a problem with not eating this fast enough. This does not freeze well...I tried it. The gelatin broke down, but it was still delicious, berry syrup!

When I tell people that we eat “high fat, moderate protein and low carb”, they usually say “you eat high fat?” We have turned the “food pyramid” upside down, placing healthy fats on the bottom and carbohydrates on the top. When you do not eat carbohydrates like grains, potatoes and corn and instead eat healthy fats like coconut oil, pastured butter, cream, and olive oil, your body gets the energy that it needs from the good fat that you eat. As these fats do not raise your blood sugar levels, and if you are avoiding sugar and carbohydrates, your insulin levels will be lower causing your metabolism to be better at burning fat rather than storing it. This is a brief explanation of what I have learned about fat these past two years. I bought into the low-fat diet theory that was fed to the public in the 80’s and 90’s. Ahh... Snack Wells, those delicious cookies that I could eat with abandon because they were fat free!! Of course, they had to replace the missing fat with carbohydrates! Now, I do not look at the fat gram info; I just care about protein and carbohydrate grams. The protein grams should be nice and high, the carb grams should be low.

"The astounding thing about the whole low-fat-diet disaster is that the entire country (actually, the entire world, at least that part of it that was boneheaded enough to take it seriously) took part in a long-term scientific study based on theories—not fact, but theories—that turned out to be wrong.”

In the same book on page xix of the introduction they write:

“We attended the Second International Symposium on Dietary Fats and Oil Consumption in Health and Disease hosted by Southwestern University Medical School in Dallas, Texas, in April 1996. At which nutritional researchers from around the world presented their findings on the effects of fat in the human diet. After the presentations showing that study subjects following the low-fat diet hadn’t gotten rid of their obesity, hadn’t lowered their cholesterol levels, had lowered their HDL levels (the good cholesterol), and had increased their blood levels of triglycerides (a major risk factor for heart disease;…), the moderators of the symposium pronounced the low-fat diet a failure”. A great article was also published just this week on FoxNews.com: “Want to get healthier and leaner? Eat more fat” written by Jacqueline Silvestri Banks. She writes:

“The low-fat diet craze that started in the 1990’s should have made us all lean and cured America’s obesity epidemic. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Instead, we became so afraid of fat that we traded in traditional foods (full fat dairy, butter, lard and even bacon) for man-made, low-fat versions (non-fat dairy, margarine or vegetable spreads, vegetable oils and meat alternatives). However, adding traditional fats back into your diet could actually make you healthier and leaner. Yes, you read that right. Fat will not make you fat. A 2003 study from the Harvard School of Public Health showed that people who ate a high fat diet lost more weight than those on a high-carbohydrate diet, even when the high-fat group ate 300 more calories per day”. Click here for the entire article. We have really enjoyed getting our energy from healthy fats instead of carbohydrates. Coconut oil, Butter, full fat cheeses, bacon and sausage (free of nitrates and nitrites) are so delicious and satisfying and keep you feeling full much longer than a bowl full of sugar-coated carbs. Mark lost 30 pounds in two months when we started eating this way. Now both of our weight is very stable, we eat a lot, are never hungry and do not gain weight. We avoid shortening, margarine, vegetable oils, and corn oils; anything that says partially hydrogenated oil means trans fat!

My Mom has been making “Better Butter” for at least 20 years. At first she made it with Canola Oil but discovered that Canola Oil is made from genetically modified rapeseed. She now makes it with Light Olive Oil—the kind that you can bake with, not extra virgin. It is nice to have a butter that comes out spreadable from the refrigerator.

½ tsp sea salt (I use real salt) Whip your butter first and then slowly drizzle the olive oil into the butter (doing it this way will help the oil not splatter out of your bowl.) Add the sea salt, beat the butter mixture until nice and fluffy. Pour the butter into your containers. I use two glass lock-n-lock containers. Refrigerate.

The longer we travel on this low-carb journey, the stricter we have become. For us, eating high fat, moderate protein, and low carb is a lifestyle, not a diet; we are both at a healthy weight. We eat this way because doing so has drastically improved our health. At the beginning we just used low-carb bread for toast to enjoy with our eggs and bacon or sausage (nitrate, nitrite free). As we learned more about our modern wheat from Dr. William Davis, the author of "Wheat Belly", we decided it would be healthier for us to be grain free. This episode of Dr. Oz with Dr. Davis is very interesting. Dr. Oz was amazed when his staff ate a piece of whole grain bread, their blood sugar level was higher, than when they ate a candy bar! http://www.doctoroz.com/episode/are-you-addicted-wheat

Our answer to what do we dip in our easy over eggs is “Maria’s everything bagel”. Maria’s Nutritious and Delicious Journal is one of my favorite blogs. Click below for the bagel recipe. http://mariahealth.blogspot.com/search?q=everything+bagelsThis recipe makes six savory bagels made with eggs, coconut flour, and whey protein. It uses a donut pan. I got mine at Bed Bath and Beyond - with my 20% off coupon, it cost only $8.

When I showed my mom how to make these, she did not have all of the herbs that Maria recommended so we just added whatever sounded good like rosemary, basil, oregano, etc. and they were great. I recommend you make these bagels your own. I use Herbes De Provence in my spice blend and Sharp Cheddar or Pecorino Romano for my cheese. I think it is the cheese that gives these bagels such a nice texture. Try making a savory sandwich on this bagel, yummy!

This recipe also answers the question: what is for lunch? I used it to make mini pigs in a blanket. I used two silicone mini-muffin pans that I got at Joanne’s with my 50% off coupon, so they cost $5.50 a piece. One recipe made 20. I filled the 20 mini-muffin cavities to the top, cut the hot dogs (nitrate, nitrite free) into four pieces and stuck each hot dog piece into the middle of the batter. I baked them at 350 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes. The silicone pans are so nice, after cooling for five minutes my pigs popped right out!